Hand-held devices of the type in question are used in particular in medicinal aerosol therapy for the treatment of respiratory complaints. The pressurized cartridge mounted in the housing of the hand-held device contains the medicament to be inhaled, with, in order to release or to eject the same, an axial displacement of the cartridge in the housing of the hand-held device being required. For this purpose, the cartridge is equipped with a valve for discharging a predetermined quantity of medicament. The housing of the hand-held device, which generally virtually completely surrounds the cartridge, furthermore has in conventional manner a mouthpiece and/or an adapter for inhalation through the nose. It is necessary to provide the user with a counting device which displays the consumed quantity of medicament or the quantity of medicament still present in the cartridge. Since a defined quantity of medicament is discharged upon each actuation of the cartridge, it is known to couple the counting device to the axial displacement of the cartridge in the inhaler housing for delivery of medicament. For each opening stroke of the cartridge, an annular scale is rotated. If the scale disk turns about an axis which is perpendicular to the stroke of the cartridge (U.S. Pat. No. 6,431,168), the lateral surface that carries the numerical values and faces the viewing window may be only very small, on account of the only limited space underneath the cartridge. The solution also already known is therefore more advantageous, to provide a scale ring which turns about an axis that coincides with the axis of the cartridge (US 2004/0144798). The plane of rotation of the scale ring is then fixed and is in front of a viewing window of the housing of the hand-held device.
It is an object of the invention to improve a solution of this kind, in particular in respect of its technical usage.